I for one am shocked and saddened that FreeTrade has abandoned an opportunity to support PTS as a paid position or even take a paid hour of his time to build a new release after others provided the patches. He left us holding the bag and searching for new developers to support PTS. I understand that it was only a bounty that he won, but considering the success and our offer to continue to pay for support, it seems like he is motivated by something other than a paycheck.
I greatly appreciate FreeTrade demonstrating how PTS can be honored and MMC2 is a huge experiment to demonstrate the perils of using voting systems as a management structure. I for one was hopeful that MMC2 would be successful, but it has clearly devolved into politics and group trap.
The Group Trap from How I found Freedom in an Unfree World
Next is the Group Trap, which is the belief that you can accomplish more by acting in groups than you can by acting on your own. Harry didn’t believe that there’s anything inherently wrong with participating in groups; you may enjoy the social aspect or something else about it. But you should be consciously aware that, if you just want to accomplish something, you not only don’t have to go through a group, but it’s actually easier to act on your own.
The heart of this Trap is what Harry states is one of the most important keys to finding freedom in life, which is understanding the difference between what he called Direct and Indirect Alternatives. An Indirect Alternative is one that requires you to go through others to get what you want; a Direct Alternative involves you acting by yourself to get what you want, without having to convince anyone else that you’re right.
An example Harry gives is a college student who’s dissatisfied with his school’s curriculum. An Indirect Alternative would be to circulate a petition around campus or to lobby the school’s board of directors to implement your change. Direct Alternatives would be to change schools or study the missing subjects on the side.
It’s not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with trying to improve the world or with wanting to be apart of a movement that‘s bigger than yourself; it’s that you should be consciously aware that you don’t have to do that to get what you want out of life – if you do it anyway, it should be for other reasons.
Harry’s example also illustrates the permanence of involvement in social or political movements. Let’s suppose our student decides to use an Indirect Alternative, working to persuade others that what he wants is right – and he succeeds. Will that be the end of it?
Probably not. Others probably liked the curriculum as it was; while still others also wanted it changed – but to what they wanted. Do you think they’ll just roll over and accept the changes? If anything, his success will show them that they, too, can change things. Our student has just unwittingly enlisted himself in a battle that won’t end until he graduates (and even then it won’t end, although it won’t be his problem anymore).
As another example, consider the abortion debate. Forty years ago, many pro-choice people probably worked for their cause with the vague notion that, if they succeeded, it would be V-J Day for them and they could quit and go back to their regular lives. But they found out quickly that their opponents weren’t giving up, so they’ve had to spend 35 years safeguarding their victory. Today, many pro-lifers probably toil under the same mistaken notion of chasing their phantom V-J Day.
Also stop to consider the issue mathematically. For example, in a group of 100 people, you contribute 1% to the total if everyone works equally hard, which of course they won’t. If you do less than the others, you contribute even less than 1%, so your efforts are statistically meaningless; if you do more, your efforts are subsidizing the slackers – but you’ll still have to share the reward with them.
Again, the point isn’t necessarily that you shouldn’t fight for causes bigger than yourself if you believe in them that much and it gives you some sense of joy or accomplishment; the point is you should be consciously aware that you don’t have to do that to get what you want, that there are easier, much more direct ways to keep the issue from affecting you adversely, whichever side you’re on, that you don’t have to spend your life fighting for or against something that’s never going away.
Conclusion
MemoryCoin is suffering from the group trap by paying salaries to elected candidates and those casting the votes will tend to vote for people that promise them the moon only to find out that after being elected they given the profits to their cronies.
Adam, I suggest you keep this 'group trap' in mind when your proposals call for voting to resolve disputes or make decisions. You are right, that paying in advance for the promise of work is terrible. Imagine if politicians had to cast all of their votes BEFORE they were elected? Imagine if they had to do all the work, attend all of the meetings, etc, and only IF the people like the product produced do they get 'elected' and their positions ratified.